


Meddling

by theoncomingwolf



Series: Ayanak Humanstuck [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, F/F, Humanstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 07:12:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8392144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoncomingwolf/pseuds/theoncomingwolf
Summary: Rose and Kanaya get involved when a fight breaks out in the school cafeteria. High school AU, Rosemary.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, this is tumblr user Ayanak. It was inevitable that I write Homestuck fic- the fact that I would do so with three exams next week was also quite probable, tbh.
> 
> I am putting this in a series listing, as I will probably write other assorted one-shots from the human au I have floating around in my head. 
> 
> This one is Rose's POV, so I tried to word some things as she might. I'm not going to lay it on as heavy as she does though, for readability.

Rose frowns at the incessant buzzing emanating from her jacket pocket. She doubts it’s John- he’s in the same boat as her, with 10 or so exhausting minutes left until lunch. She can only really guess on the time- the clock is on the back wall, so only the teacher can see, trapping the students in a timeless void of instruction, save for the 50 minute timestamps announced by a dull buzzing that signifies the beginning of the 5 minutes students have to gather all their shit and prepare for the next 50 minutes of sitting.

At least it’s lunch soon.

The phone buzzes again; she thinks for a moment it may be her mother, sending her such poorly typed texts that even autocorrect doesn’t stand a chance. She turned it off long ago, so her misspelled words weren’t corrected into ones with a completely different meaning. That, Rose thinks, or she missed having fun with some of the more bizarre typos.

Her pocket continues its tremulous existence, and Rose decides that it’s not her mother. Dave is more likely to send her a wall of text, even with classes to attend, and Karkat throws them all into group chats from time to time. She suspects it’s one of them.

Finally, the bell rings, alerting her that she now has a whole 25 minutes to get food, eat food, throw away trash, and get back to her next class.

Rose, having spent the first 15 years of her life homeschooled, thinks this is all utter bullshit.

Her mother, however, decided that Rose should get a taste of what public education was like before she went to college, and enrolled her for her sophomore year at the closest school. Due to the lack of school bus routes by her house, she was able to attain a hardship license, so Rose could start driving herself at 15.

By September, Rose had her taste of public high school, and was over it. By March, she was really over it.

Still, there were some good things about high school.

“Hello, Kanaya.”

Kanaya turns to her with a smile, moving to block the teacher’s view of her as she sees Rose pull out her phone.

“Thanks,” Rose murmurs, reading the messages Dave had sent her.

It’s a rap.

She ignores it for now, as it doesn’t look complete, and slips her phone back in her pocket, following Kanaya to the lunch room so they can get food before the lines become too long.

She likes the food here, despite what she’s heard about school lunches from television. They’ve got lasagna and tater tots today- an odd combination, but neither bad on its own.

They sit at their usual table. One good thing about her enrollment at this specific school was that she had already known John for the past three years, through their parents, meaning she had somewhere to go at lunch from the first day.

John is sat between Karkat and Vriska, laughing about something that Vriska seems to find hilarious, and Karkat does not. Rose sits in front of John, asking about the meal his dad had packed, and trades her tater tots for his cupcake.

Lunch is nice, but passes far too quickly, and soon she’s preparing to head to math. It’s 2 minutes to the bell when the fight breaks out.

Just about everyone in the lunch room is on their feet in a second to see what’s going on. Terezi grabs Vriska’s arm, allowing herself to be led closer to the fray as Vriska excitedly describes the tussle between Sollux and Eridan.

“Now Feferi’s trying to stop them,” Vriska yells, over the din.

She’s not having much luck, Rose observes.

Kanaya pushes through the crowd, lunging forward as Feferi gets knocked backwards, and grabs onto the closest boy to try and pull him away from the other, before the smaller girl can try again.

Rose, who’s accidentally stepped into the circle as well to try and see what Kanaya was doing, steps between Sollux and Eridan once they’re effectively separated, so Kanaya has any chance of calming Eridan down.

Rose isn’t particularly fond of either of them, and she’s never really spoken to Feferi, but Kanaya truly is a meddler at heart, and Rose doesn’t mind getting caught up with her.

Feferi grabs at Sollux as he resumes shouting, and Eridan shoves past Kanaya to try and land another blow. Instead of a clear shot, he finds Rose in his way.

The hit takes her by surprise.

She thinks it takes Eridan by surprise, too, judging by his face right before she lands hard on the tile.

John squats next to her immediately, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder; he seems to be asking if she’s okay, but it’s now twice as loud in the cafeteria, so she can’t hear a thing.

Rose sits up suddenly, spluttering as the blood from her nose starts to leak into her breathing passages. John leans back, to avoid being headbutted and joining her in her injury. He moves forward again, misinterpreting the blur of movement to his left as another threat to Rose’s face; consequently, Rose misses Kanaya slam her fist into Eridan’s eye.

Rose shrugs John off in time to see Eridan catch himself on a table, knocking over the drink of a student who smartly vacated their seat after the first hit. Karkat stumbles past, nearly tripping over John, and grabs Kanaya around the waist, in case she and Eridan decide to exchange any more blows. Nepeta steps into the circle as well- she’s too small to block Kanaya and Eridan’s eye contact, but at the very least, she’s a barrier between them. Sollux follows Feferi, finally, to the side. Vriska boos at the end of the fight, followed by some copycat jeering.

Terezi crouches beside Rose, handing her a wad of napkins she'd grabbed from the closest table. She leans close, her eyes open wide to try to catch sight of the red covering the lower half of Rose’s face through her mostly darkened vision.

“Nice look, Lalonde.”

With Karkat having pulled away Kanaya, Sollux sitting sulkily in front of his remaining tator tots, and Eridan leaning against the table he fell onto, the situation is entirely deflated by the time a teacher comes to deal with them.

Spectators are told to clear their food and head to class, since the bell has rung; Nepeta, Karkat, and Feferi are dismissed next; John is sent to the nurse for ice; and Rose, Kanaya, Sollux, and Eridan are hauled away to the front office. Sollux and Eridan both backed up claims that Feferi had nothing to do with it, and neither Rose or Kanaya cared to contradict.

The two boys are summoned first, each to different rooms, once John has returned to drop an icepack on each of their laps. He hands Rose hers with a smile, before the secretary shoos him out, leaving Kanaya and Rose together.

“Does it hurt?” Kanaya asks, dropping her voice so Rose can barely hear her, “I know we’re not supposed to carry it, but I have some Advil in my backpack…”

“I dry swallowed two,” Rose murmurs back, tapping her own purse with her foot, “thanks.”

They haven’t kicked in yet, unfortunately. Her nose is throbbing, the pain radiating outward so she feels it behind her eyes. The addition of the icepack brings a burn that hurts even more, even though she knows it’s helping in the long run.

After a bit, Rose lowers the ice from her face, reaching across Kanaya’s lap to gently place the pack on her hand.

Kanaya hardly dares move in case she should pull away, but slowly she brings up her opposite hand to brush her fingers over Rose’s wrist.

“Miss Maryam.”

They both flinch; Rose pulls her arm back, hesitantly placing the ice back on the bridge of her nose.

Eridan slinks out of the hallway, followed by the principal.

He sits in a chair on the opposite side of the room, shooting Rose a look that doesn’t seem particularly unfriendly; she tilts her head slightly upwards in response, to show that she’s not quite as mad as Kanaya is about him hitting her.  

“Come with me,” the principal continues, “I’ll be back for you in a minute, Mr. Ampora.”

“I think they’re facilitating a Prisoner’s Dilemma,” Rose says, once he’s left.

“Huh?”

“I’m merely speculating on the motivations behind pulling you two in separately,” she explains, coming up with another theory she’s more sure he’ll understand, “or maybe they’re playing the Newlywed Game.”

Eridan nods, “something like that.”

They sit in awkward silence while Kanaya is being grilled on the events at lunch, during which Rose considers if they’ll confiscate her phone, should she use it. She ultimately decides it’s too likely that they will to risk, and she slumps in her chair, examining the blood stains that are never going to come out of her shirt.

The concerned coo at the door, ten whole minutes after Kanaya was called for questioning, catches their attention.

Rose groans at the sight of her mother in the doorway, towering over the secretary, who has come to greet her. She’s 5’10” with the heels, and is wearing her white button coat over a knee length dress. She crouches in front of Rose, and the dress becomes quite a bit shorter than knee length. Eridan doesn’t even seem to notice the glare Rose shoots at him, his gaze fixed where it is.

“Rosie, what happened?” She asks, touching Rose’s face as she examines the injury; her nose has stopped bleeding, and a majority of the blood has been washed off, but it still doesn’t look very good.

“I was being meddlesome, and consequently was punched in the face.”

Her mother laughs, standing to slide into the seat previously occupied by Kanaya.

“That sounds about right,” she says, her eyes meeting Eridan’s, “barring precedent, of course.”

He looks at the floor.

“What’s that?” Rose asks; she was going to ask why her mother was at the school, but the answer seems too obvious.

“It’s just coffee,” her mother huffs, handing Rose the warm cup, “would you like some?”

“Yes, thank you,” Rose says, taking the offered drink; they both know she’s only challenging her with the gesture.

Rose takes a sip. It really does seem to be just coffee, but she’s not sure if she would be able to tell if her mother had added anything to it. She hands it back.

“How did you get here?” Rose asks, coolly; another challenge.

“I drove, of course,” she answers, “but you can drive home.”

“They’re sending me home?”

“Yes, after they’ve had a second to talk to you,” Roxy says, “anything you want to add before they talk to me?”

Rose quietly tells her the short of the story- Sollux and Eridan were fighting, she got hit on accident, and Kanaya punched Eridan while John and Terezi helped her.

She lifts her eyebrows at the mention of Kanaya’s name, giving Rose a look she does not like at all.

The vice principal finally sends Sollux out, retrieving Eridan as quickly as she can so they aren’t together in the room for more than a second.

Roxy stands as Kanaya walks back into the main part of the office, allowing her to sit beside Rose.

“What happened?” Rose asks, quietly, while the principal comes over to greet her mother.

“They’re suspending me,” Kanaya tells her, clearly upset, “It’s going to show up on my record; I have to apply for colleges next year…”

Roxy glances back at them, not apparently listening to the principal very carefully.

He asks Rose to follow him back, and Roxy sits beside Kanaya.

She shoots one final look back at the two of them before entering the smaller office.

Her line of questioning doesn’t take long at all. She tells him that Eridan accidentally hit her when she came closer to see what was going on, and she couldn’t really see what happened next because John was in the way, and she was a little dazed- she was not dazed in the least, but the fewer details they had the better, in her opinion.

She’s sent back out only a couple minutes after being summoned, and Roxy gives Kanaya’s shoulder a gentle pat before she heads into the hallway.

“So?” Kanaya asks.

“I didn’t see much,” Rose tells her, “my nose is broken. What did my mother have to say?”

“She was just asking me about how they were punishing me,” Kanaya tells her, “she asked Sollux the same thing,” she leans close and points vaguely towards the secretary, whispering, “Mrs. Aldonne tried to tell her not to ask us, but she ignored her.”

Rose is sure she did.

She’s not sure how to feel about her mother talking to the principal, but she worries it’s going to end with a hyperbolic amount of fuss. She closes her eyes, leaning on Kanaya’s shoulder; Kanaya slides her hand under the edge of Rose’s shirt, soothingly rubbing her fingers over Rose’s lower back. She’s as relaxed as she can be under the circumstances, with her face hurting, her mother speaking unsupervised, and Kanaya in trouble partly because of her. They sit like this for several minutes, at least; Rose loses track.

“Kanaya, dear…”

Rose lifts her head, and Kanaya’s hand disappears from her back. Well, that was nice while it lasted.

Roxy drops into the seat beside her; she’s holding a book, undoubtedly swiped from the principal’s desk. On top of the book is a piece of paper, which Rose leans over Kanaya to read.

“Miss Lalonde!” The principal protests, following her into the main office.

“Dr.” she corrects, before ignoring him, “how do you spell your name, sweetheart?”

“Uhm,” Kanaya glances to the principal, who is still trying to control Rose’s mother; Roxy waits patiently, “K-A-N-A-Y-A; M-A-R-Y-A-M…”

Roxy copies this over to her piece of paper, smoothing her dress back down as she stands, and heads back into the principal’s office.

“What was that?”

“Looked like a consent form,” Rose tells her, “I think they want her to sign away her right to sue the school.”

“Why did she need my name?” Kanaya asks, puzzled.

“I suspect she’s adding some caveats,” Rose tells her, suppressing a smile; she also suspects she could have done so without breezing into the room and talking to Kanaya, but her mother does like to make a show of things.

When she returns, Roxy shoots a grin and a wink in their direction; the principal looks rather exhausted, and Kanaya is called back into his office.

\--

“What did you do?” Rose asks, sliding into the front seat of her mother’s car.

Her own car is in the parking lot, but doubting her mother is really sober enough to drive, she swung by John’s classroom to give him her keys before she left; Rose drove him to school this morning, and with the amount she and her mother see the Egberts, she’s sure it’ll be in her possession again soon.

“Oh nothing,” Roxy laughs, “I just said how delicate and fragile you were, and how your nose could be messed up forever,”

Rose groans.

“...and how if your nice friend Kanaya hadn’t intervened, it might have all been much worse,” she continues, and Rose thinks she knows where this is going, “so if he wanted my good graces, he should at the very least not be punishing the girl who saved you.”

They both know she did no such thing- Kanaya’s punch was unnecessary.

“So she’s not suspended?”

“Oh, she is- you too,” her mother says, “but it’s not on either of your records. Let’s get coffee honey- turn left.”

“ _I’m_ suspended?” Rose pulls onto the main road, speeding up through the left turn, “he never mentioned that.”

“I may have gotten you suspended while rebutting his ‘no tolerance’ policy,” Roxy muses, “you were somewhat involved, after all. But it got Kanaya in less trouble. It’s only for the rest of the week, anyway; four days if you count today.”

Rose nods- she doesn’t mind the idea of a long weekend.

“Hey, we should have that nice girl over for dinner tonight, do you think?”

Rose huffs, for show, but doesn’t refuse the offer.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a review if you liked it. :)


End file.
